The Sword of Moses

by Dominic Selwood

  “Cider?” She was not quite sure what he meant.

  “Being ahead of me. Where did you get to today? You missed the rendezvous.” He looked like it had been a long day.

  She was not sure how much to tell him. Instinctively, she wanted as little leakage back to Prince as possible. But she was not going to lie to him.

  “I had an opportunity to get close to Malchus, and I took it,” she answered truthfully.

  “That’s it?” he asked, when it was clear she was not going to elaborate any further.

  She nodded. “Probably best to spare you the details.”

  “That’s a nasty looking cut you’ve got there.” He pointed to her left eye.

  She put a finger up to it, and felt a scab where Malchus had jabbed his rosary’s sharpened hexagram pendant into her face. She had not noticed it before, but found it was tender to the touch. “It’s nothing,” she answered dismissively. “I got a tree branch in my face.”

  From his expression, she could tell he did not believe her for a moment.

  “Look, I understand you don’t want me around,” he admitted, dropping down onto the bench opposite her. “But why call and get me over here if you’re not going to tell me what’s going on? Why not just slip away into the night?”

  Ava felt a little sheepish. “I understand if you want to say ‘no’, but right now I could do with a bit of help with something that’s come up.”

  Ferguson looked nonplussed. He dug his hands into his jeans pockets and looked pensive, weighing up his response. “I’m not sure that’s going to be the best way,” he answered. “We need to think a bit more about this.” With that, he got up and headed over to the bar.

  She watched him wander across the room and start a light-hearted exchange with the landlord as he ordered his drink.

  He returned with a pint of beer, and sipped it thoughtfully as he sat down opposite her again, looking appreciatively at the mahogany-coloured liquid before turning his gaze back to her. “Anyway, you want a favour?” He left the rest of the sentence unspoken, but she got his meaning immediately—even though you don’t want me around. “I’ve got things to do, too, you know,” he continued. “And running around a hippie-trippie festival for six hours trying to find you isn’t one of them.”

  She did not blame him for feeling resentful.

  “But,” he continued. “I do owe you a favour.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You do?”

  He took a sip of his beer before continuing. “To pay you back for pulling me off the boat in Kazakhstan.”

  She would not have thought of it that way. What was the alternative? Leave him there to be gassed? Still, if he wanted to see it as a favour, that was fine by her. “So we have a deal?”

  Ferguson shook his head. “Not so fast. Because you owe me a favour, too.”

  “I do?” It was news to Ava.

  Ferguson continued unabashed. “For the file on Malchus I pulled for you. I didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yes, you did,” she countered. “You guessed, correctly, that it was your best shot at getting me into your car this morning. You were just doing your job.”

  “Well, yes and no.” He paused. “But I didn’t have to share it all with you. And I didn’t have to get you this.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper, which he handed to her.

  She scanned it quickly.

  It was a photocopy of a short typed letter on Foreign and Commonwealth Office notepaper, but bearing MI6’s Vauxhall Cross address and signed with a single initial—‘C’.

  As she read it, her curiosity turned to increasing disbelief.

  By the time she had reached the last line, her face had drained of all colour.

  “Was this in the file, too?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

  Ferguson nodded. “I figured as it was a duplicate file copy, no one would miss it.”

  Ava stared hard at the piece of paper, trying to make sense of what she had just read.

  It was a copy of an official letter from the Chief of MI6 to the Director of Public Prosecutions—the head of the government agency in charge of bringing criminal prosecutions in the UK.

  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

  85, ALBERT EMBANKMENT

  LONDON S.W.8

  12th December 2002

  Dear Sir,

  Under the 1951 guidelines issued by Sir Hartley Shawcross and successive Attorneys-General, and as stated in the current Code for Crown Prosecutors, prosecutions for criminal offences are to be brought if they are in the public interest.

  I hereby inform you that it is not considered in the public interest to contemplate any further investigation into, or prosecution against, the German national Oskar Boehme (also known as Marius Malchus) in connection with the death of Her Majesty’s servant Simon Curzon.

  Yours, etc.

  C

  Ava’s insides knotted.

  She read the letter again, just in case she had misunderstood it. But she had not.

  It was clear.

  General Hunter had been telling the truth.

  But he had clearly not told her everything. He had said there was a suspicion Malchus was involved in her father’s death. Yet if the Chief was ordering a halt to all criminal investigations, it went way beyond a suspicion. This letter was an official whitewash—an unambiguous order not to ask any more questions.

  And it came right from the top.

  Ava was breathing rapidly, as the years of suppressed frustration turned into palpable resentment.

  “Does it seem right to you?” She held out the paper. “Does it? I’m not naïve. I know the Chief signs orders like these to protect agents and operations. But I’m a relative. I was in the service. We were all family. Why on earth wasn’t I told? How could they keep this from me?”

  She looked up at Ferguson, her eyes dark with anger. “Is this how they show their appreciation, after all he did for them?”

  She knew she was speaking more freely than she had intended. She was angry with them. And angry with herself. She could not believe she had allowed herself to be fobbed off so easily. She should have put up more of a fight, and not just accepted that it was policy not to give family members details of deaths on operational duty.

  She looked back at the letter.

  This changed everything.

  It was now clear there was a bigger picture behind it all. And the way she saw it, she should have been told. If there had been an ongoing operation, they could have involved her. It would have helped give her closure—helped her to feel she was doing something. But instead they had done what they did best—keep secrets.

  When she turned to face him again, her voice was quieter. “Anyway, why are you giving me this? Did Prince tell you to pass it to me? Is this one of her games? To make me grateful so I let you further into my confidence?” Her voice was steady, masking the maelstrom she was feeling inside.

  Ferguson shook his head slowly. “No. I’m on my own with this one.”

  She stared hard at him, defying him to lie to her.

  He shrugged. “I figured if it was me, I’d want to know.”

  She examined his face closely for the first time, searching out signs of tension or conflict. But there were none. She wondered if he was an accomplished deceiver, like so many others who worked for the Firm. But she knew instinctively he was not. He was a soldier—more practised at bravado and banter than deception.

  “In which case—thank you,” she replied simply. “It’s important to me.” She paused, aware her reaction had left no doubt of the fact. “But I guess you already knew that.”

  “So what’s the favour?” he asked, changing the subject.

  Ava took a sip of her cider and pushed the hair out of her face, as if to brush away what she had just learned.

  “I need the details on a big Elizabethan country house about two miles west of here—who owns it, who visits it, anything known about it. The usual. Malchus seems to have an open invitation
to treat it as his own.”

  “No problem. I can get that for you. I’ve got the gear in the car.”

  “Good. Let’s find out then,” she answered decisively, swilling what was left of her cider around the glass before draining it and putting the empty glass down on the low side table.

  “Not quite yet,” he said, holding up a hand. “There’s still the favour you owe me.”

  She had forgotten, but nodded.

  Fair was fair.

  “You think I’m in the way, and you don’t want me dragging around behind you. But I’ll be open with you—I’m not having much fun, either. So I’m going to stop trailing you.”

  That sounded good. “But that’s not exactly me doing you a favour,” Ava replied.

  “No,” he continued, “so here’s my request. Give me three days. That’s all I ask. Just three days, and then I’m gone if you say so. But in that time, tell me what you’re up to. Let me try and help. If, after three days, you still think I’m wasting your time, I’ll report back to Prince, tell her you’re going nowhere fast, and recommend she should forget about you and explore other avenues.”

  He looked solemnly at her. “That’s it. Three days and we’re quits. But you never know, in that time you might find we make a good team.”

  “Why would you do that?” she asked. “Why would you go back to Prince and get her off my trail?”

  “I’ve got to give you some incentive to keep me around,” he smiled. “Because what you’re getting into looks way more interesting than anything else I’m likely to be asked to do.”

  Ava weighed it up. “If you’re saying we’re quits in three days, and I can move forward without Prince and you on my case, that’s a no-brainer.”

  “We’ll see,” he answered confidently.

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” she shot him a curious look.

  “The mind is like a parachute,” he replied earnestly.

  She raised an eyebrow at him, inviting an explanation

  “Useless,” he smiled, “unless it’s open.”

  “A bar-room philosopher, too,” she shook her head in mock bewilderment. “Then we have a deal. Let’s go.”

  Ferguson leant towards her. “That cut really does look nasty,” he peered closely at it with a concerned expression. “You should clean it. I’ll see if the landlord has any antiseptic.”

  Ava pulled back, and stood up. “Let’s get one thing straight.” She was speaking slowly and deliberately, her friendliness gone. “We may have an understanding. But that’s all it is. Leave the personal touch out of it.”

  The look of concern melted from Ferguson’s face, to be replaced with a businesslike expression. “Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”

  “Let’s go then,” Ava stepped past the dog. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Ferguson stared for a moment at his pint of ale, barely touched. With a sigh he put it down and made for the door.

  She headed to the bar and had a quick conversation with the landlord before joining Ferguson by the door.

  “What was that about?” he asked.

  “I just wanted some antiseptic for the cut,” she replied.

  “But I thought—” he began, before Ava interrupted him.

  “I’m not an idiot,” she smiled. “Last thing I need is a septic cut on my face. Now let’s go.”

  Ferguson stared after her in disbelief as she stepped out of the door into the dusk.

  ——————— ◆ ———————

  49

  The Lord Nelson

  Barking

  London IG11

  England

  The United Kingdom

  Uri—or Danny Motson, as he now called himself—closed the chipped and dented door behind him. It had at one time been painted a cheery blue, but its battered state, together with the general smell of urine and damp in the concrete corridor, comprehensively cancelled any uplifting effect it may once have had.

  He had found the small flat pretty easily.

  The landlord had met him in a café over a cup of tea and a plate of sausages and eggs. There was no paperwork involved—just a requirement for him to hand over a deposit and a week’s rent upfront, along with a threat that if he failed to pay any future sums owing, he would find his belongings in the street. He was also warned that if he caused any trouble at all, he would receive a visit from “associates” he was assured he would rather not meet.

  The arrangement was pretty much what he had been expecting, and so was the property—a nondescript flat in one of London’s run-down concrete estates.

  As he headed down the graffiti-covered stairwell, the smell of urine intensified. It was dingy, and there were no working bulbs behind the caged light-shades bolted into the walls, leaving the steps lit only by the fading daylight.

  He had spent the afternoon on an uncomfortable plastic chair in a nearby internet café. Its narrow booths were separated by grimy chipboard partitions, and he barely had enough room to operate the small flimsy mouse. But it had given him the cyber-anonymity he needed, allowing him to immerse himself in the surprisingly complicated world of England’s extreme right-wing scene.

  As he had expected, there was a wealth of racist material just a click away. None of it struck him as particularly new, insightful, or even shocking—just the usual monologues blaming race, colour, religion, or any combination for all society’s evils.

  But he was not after the propaganda.

  After a few hours of burrowing into usergroups, he finally found something that might serve his purpose.

  Dogs of War, a band that had previously been arrested for its extremist race-hate lyrics, was playing at a pub in Barking that evening. From the way some of the chat-boards were lit up with the news, it seemed likely to be a popular event.

  It would do nicely.

  Uri took down the details, then caught the train into central London, where he spent the remainder of the afternoon buying the designer label clothes preferred by his target crowd, who had long ago abandoned the black shirts, bomber jackets, and Dr Martens that once singled them out so easily. Now they wore select international designer labels—less visible to the police and public, but just as identifiable to each other.

  When he finally made it to The Lord Nelson, it was exactly as he had imagined it—a run-down building on a scruffy street corner. It was a typical suburban pub—an Arts and Crafts mock-Tudor building dating from the turn of the twentieth century.

  There were no welcoming plants or flower baskets arranged outside, or awards displayed on the door announcing its success in various good pub guides and competitions. Instead, there were rusty grilles over the gloomy windows, and a raised metal roller-shutter above the sturdy front door. A large grey satellite TV dish covered in peeling stickers dominated the sloping roof, and a tatty painted blackboard outside featured a bulldog in a Union Jack T-shirt proclaiming that visitors could watch all England’s matches on a big screen.

  The pub was quite clearly not aimed at the family lunch crowd.

  Its political allegiances were also unmistakeable. While one side of the swinging sign-board displayed a portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson, telescope in hand, Uri recognized the other side as England’s most infamous fascist, Oswald Mosley, in the same pose as Nelson, but clutching a rolled up map of the British Isles in place of the telescope.

  In case that was not enough to warn off any non-English drinkers, the curb of the pavement in front of the pub had been hurriedly painted in faded red, white, and blue stripes.

  There was already a rowdy crowd outside. By the puddles of beer and empty glasses on the pavement, it was clear they had been drinking for several hours. That was fine by Uri—their reflexes would be slower if there was any trouble.

  Walking confidently, he made his way through the revellers and into the pub.

  Despite the tens of thousands of non-white people thronging London’s pubs that evening, the faces at The Lord Nelson were exclusively whit
e.

  Most of the drinkers were in their twenties to mid-thirties—and dressed in the designer label clothes Uri had spent the afternoon browsing. As he passed through the crowd, he noticed that although the clothes and haircuts were smarter and more expensive than those that would have been seen in the pub two decades earlier, beneath it all, the atmosphere was still unmistakably one of fists, boots, and bricks.

  Uri was confident. At school in Haifa he had learned British English not American English, so his accent sounded as good as anyone else’s in the pub.

  He was just another dirty-blond white guy.

  Heading for the stripped wooden bar, he ordered a beer. He would drink it slowly. He needed to stay clear and focused.

  There was a set of double-doors at the back of the room, pasted with advertising posters for the performance by Dogs of War that evening. Uri headed for it, keen to scope out the layout of the pub.

  He pushed open the doors to find the back room was a medium-sized space, already filling with drinkers. A third of the floor was taken up with a wooden stage set against the far wall, overhung with stage-lights cycling through a calm pre-programmed display of cool red, white, and blue tunnels of light. Occasionally, a hiss of smoke from a metal box at the back of the stage replenished the theatrical fog hanging over the guitars, amplifiers, and drum kit, whose chromed fittings gleamed brightly whenever caught by the stage-lights.

  Behind it all, a large black flag had been tacked to the back wall, featuring the name ‘Dogs of War’ over a manga-style painting of a medieval battlefield dominated by the heads of three snarling mastiffs, saliva dripping onto their studded collars, all three advancing under a Union Jack pennant.

  Uri leaned up against the wall. He had plenty of time. For now he just needed to observe.

  The crowd were becoming progressively more drunk, and the atmosphere was increasingly charged with the arrival of ever more people into the backroom.

  As the crowd thickened around the stage, the periodic shouts and jeers for the band to start got louder.

  Eventually, the house lights dimmed, and the audience began to bay and howl in anticipation, heckling the band to appear.